Scattered everywhere
by aerisofthewhite
Summary: He could have thrown it all away and Elban to hell and ridden off with her into the sun set of that night. A series of oneshots on Rydia's and Edge's thoughts they they lie in wait... -FFIV, Rydia/Edge. Previously "You're all I have".
1. A frightening magic

Written in response to a challenge by touchofgray on LJ, based upon the lyrics of "Darkness Darkness", below.

Disclaimer: I do not own FFIV. But maybe you already knew that? Lyrics and title from "You're all I have" by Snow Patrol.

--

_**Darkness, Darkness, be my pillow **_

_**Take my head and let me sleep **_

_**In the coolness of your shadow **_

_**In the silence of your deep**_

--

_There is a darkness _

_deep in you. _

_**A Frightening Magic**_

_I cling to._

Twilight. On the human side, anyway. At least, she thinks it is. It's too hard to keep time down here, when the movements of the worlds are so different, but she thinks she's managed all right.

She wonders why she's doing this. Why is she making this journey above ground just to watch the sun set, like she's seen it do so many times before? Why can't she just wait for an invitation from Cecil and Rosa so she can have an excuse to make the trip? Or maybe a visit from Kain.

She looks down and wonders if the dragoon could make the jump from the ground to the world above. He'd always claimed he could leap to the stars if he wanted to, and he'd promised to take her with him once. But that was before he'd started training on Mt. Ordeals, in order to prove himself to Cecil and (more importantly) Rosa. That had put her off the idea rather a lot. Besides, she doesn't really care for stars. And she's pretty sure he was only trying to sweet-talk her into liking him.

The ground is becoming too far off for her liking and instead she looks up. The gaping opening that she's supposed to be aiming for isn't much more than a pin-prick from this distance. She wishes this lift would go faster and yet she's apprehensive about using magic to make it do so. It's old and it creaks, even at this slow pace. The dwarves assured her of it sturdiness and yet they're a lot smaller than she is.

_This is madness_, she tells herself but she doesn't stop. She doesn't know if she can. She feels drawn to the world above, to that sun set. Nothing can stop her completing this journey, if her fear of heights can't. She feels compelled to keep moving and she can if she just doesn't look down. Because something about that moment when the horizon sort of gives a slight shudder, when the glow of the brink is finally extinguished, when the world gives in completely to darkness- it enthralls her. And she misses it. There's nothing like that down here, where the darkness is eternal. Or rather the twilight is eternal, warding off the night with glowing magic orb, torches and seas of lava.

(The hole is getting larger, and her pulse is racing again.)

She tries to convince herself this attraction is harmless and yet she knows it isn't- and this trip isn't just for pretty scenery. She worries this means she's drawn to darkness. And that darkness is drawing her to this over-world and to him. The irony that the crystals of the underworld are supposed to be the dark ones, and yet their realm does nothing to satisfy this urge does not pass her by, but she can't even force a laugh.

When he had proposed to her, they had been on the deck of the _Lunar Whale _at nightfall. It was the first time since she could remember that she had been distracted from the twilight even before he'd said anything. And that she's stared into it without seeing after the words had sunk in. But she had pushed him away.

(She tries to do it now, to push the memories away but there's no distraction on this lift and she's absorbed with thought.)

She didn't want to. For once, she wanted to just give into these impulses and say yes- but she couldn't let herself. How could she be Queen Rydia, trapped on a thrown for the rest of her life? Walking five steps behind him at all times? Never sitting or rising until he did so? That type of life was for Rosa, not for her.

(She can feel cool air and shivers, but not because of it.)

Escape was the only choice she had, but it meant escaping all that she loves. And it goes to show that she couldn't escape it. Something about him is calling her back. She knows that this venture will end with him. Somehow.

He let it go, just accepted her refusal without much of an explaination. Probably because he thought she was in love with Cecil- and he was partly right. She was once in love with the idea of the Dark Knight, the strength and the power. She's always been drawn to power. She had idolized Cecil on their journey together and then when she had been separated from him- dark and strong and brave and (behind the helmet), ruggedly handsome. She could not tear her eyes from the disturbingly enthralling beauty of his Dark ability- almost slicing his soul open to protect them. That was devotion.

When they'd met again, she'd almost been disappointed to find him helmet-less; pretty, with pale hair and blue eyes, in an almost fragile way. He'd chosen the white magicks, in both his profession and woman, while she had favored the black. It created a wedge between them that he rarely seemed to notice, not helped by the fact that he still saw her and treated her as a child.

Unlike Kain. Kain spoke to her without the patronising tone Cecil and Rosa usually reserved for her, and as much as she still resented him for her mother's death and the attempt to take her life and the countless betrayals, his brimming power and excitement thrilled her, even when he snatched the crystal from their grasp. But that was soon quenched when she saw his dedication also to Rosa. Indeed, she wondered if any would ever choose her over the strikingly attractive white mage.

(And this jealousy tells her there's a darkness within her too, that she draws her magic from and that gnaws at her to visit this world and see that dusk. And she's scared of it, on the few occasions that she admits it exists.)

Maybe that was why Edward (and she uses his real name because it annoys him so much when she makes the connection and it's really easier to resist him when she likens him to the bard she suspects is gay, despite his apparent great love for Anna) had caught her eye. He treated her as an adult (having never known her as a child) **and** showed Rosa no more interest than he did any other girl.

(Her head is through. She can tell because her hair is blowing about in the wind, but her eyes won't open- afraid of how much will have changed or how much she'll recognise after all the time below? Maybe a little of both.)

But it's more than that. He's just different from the others. She used to find herself staring at him without meaning to and so getting lost in the pace of battle and getting hit with a toad spell or striking him with lightening by accident. She couldn't let his conceited comments go without reprimanding him and, on an occasion when he got drunk and hinted about the fun they could have in one of the up-stairs room at the inn with her whip, she turned him into a pig. "Now you match your words," she'd said. But she couldn't have taken any notice at all if he had never said them.

When he proposed to her, she pushed him away, not because of any reasons she'd been able to give him (or any reason she dared to give herself), but because the darkness that draws her to him is a part of who he is- he isn't being controlled or forced into accepting it, he is naturally arrogant and chauvinistic and uncouth. It isn't darkness like the others had. It was more a fiendishness that she found oddly comforting- much like the enthrallment of the setting sun. It scares her that something could be so horrifying to her and yet transfixing at once.

Finally, she grasps that the lift isn't stopping, even though she's sure she's through and forces it to do so with magic. Then she opens her eyes. And everything is the same. She doesn't know why she expected it all to be so different, when only several weeks could have passed up here, a few months at the most. But she's disappointed (and maybe repressing relief). After all that she's changed, nothing about this place has changed with her.

She realises at once that all that time underground _had_ caused her to lose track of time. It's a few hours before twilight. Or maybe she had planned for those few hours. She could make her way to Elban to see that wonderful view he'd always bragged about... Combine the world's plunge of darkness with her own?

She's too far above the ruined mountain for her liking and slowly directs herself to the ground, shaking all the while, knowing that this blasted thing could fall apart at any minute. She's going to have to see Cid about it before she even thinks of going back. That should buy her another few days here.

(She's unsure if that's a good thing or a bad. She'll soon see.)

She's panting, and she knows it's with fear. She doesn't want to give in to these compulsions, to give him a reason to smile smugly again, but right now it seems more important that watching a sun set, more important that returning below and living freely with the summons, more important than flying to the moon and saving the world (even though he told her not to, which made it even more crucial).

She throws out her arms and calls forth a chocobo. She's a little rusty at this summoning thing (the result of being able to merely stick her head out a window to get their attention rather than going through complicated hand-gestures to do so) and she's surprised one comes forward at all; only the one that comes to her now is black (well, really purple).

She tries to see the irony in the production of a black chocobo at this time, refraining from worrying whether this summon should be purple (wasn't it supposed to be yellow?) and trying to convince herself it's all for the best ( a yellow one wouldn't be much good to her on this island. Less so than the grumbling elevator which she averts from kicking, because it did it's best and eventually got her up here).

Bracing herself, she clambers upon it and, with a cry and a moan, that tells her she hasn't lost her charm with the creatures, it speeds away- past the town, off the cliff and (after a heart-pounding drop), over the waves. Oddly, she feels no need to close her eyes. Maybe she's getting braver in her old age. Maybe she really has changed.

No, she doesn't believe that. She is no different. She's not going to be Queen Rydia and she isn't giving into her own darkness. She's just embracing his shadow a little, that's all. So what if she isn't ready to accept her own darkness? The way she sees it, he has enough for both of them.

--

(A/N: It's undergone some alterations from what it originally was- but I kinda like it now. Review if you like.)


	2. A welcome arrow

Yeah, so I decided to continue the story on, this time from Edge's point of view. Meh, it just didn't seem finished to me (although how this finishes, I've no idea. The third and probably final chapter is going through many senarios and none fit).

Oh yeah, and it's all from "You're all I have". Name change. 'Cause I love the song and I'm uncreative...

--

_You're cinematic, razor-sharp._

_**A welcome arrow**__ through the heart_

Twilight- come and now fading. Slowly he tries to will himself away from the window he's been leaning out of for the past hour or so. But to no avail. Even though he has a balcony, he still prefers to stand at the window and watch. It makes him feel less pathetic.

He wonders why he's doing this to himself- why he's torturing himself by watching this blasted sunset every night. He doesn't even really like sun-sets. Not that he prefers the dawn. Far from it. He loves the night- those glorious midnight-black nights, like they got during those brief few days on the moon.

And he supposes the twilight is pretty, with its many bright colours, but he's never been a person to be held down by beauty for long. Most of the time, he's just impatient with the twilight. Evenings which could be spent in devious escapades are now wasted in waiting, just because it's midsummer time and the sun can't make it'self set just a little bit faster to give him cover of darkness to sneak out.

Not that he wants to sneak out now. That's not why he's waiting. He hasn't wanted to escape the newly rebuilt palace in weeks (his steward had been praising his own good work for the King's change of heart. And as much as the man annoys him, he can't really will himself to tell him the truth).

But it's just in his nature to be impatient with the sunset. He's always been reckless, always impulsive always jumping off the deep end, without considering the consequences. Or something along those lines. To date, he's never really regretted any of his snap decisions. Joining Cecil and his party allowed him to escape the kingdom and the responsibility for a few months, gave him the chance to avenge his parents' deaths (only they never really felt avenged. Maybe because he still feels cheated of something), provided him with an adventure- fly to the moon, save the world, get the pretty girl.

_Only she turned you down_, an annoying voice from the back of his mind speaks. The voice that sounds like an oddly disturbing mixture of his steward and that FuSo Ya guy. The voice which keeps telling him to forget about nonsense like heroes and pretty summoners in green, which tells him to keep his head down and be a good king (with too much politics in his head for his liking). The voice that he can't ignore and can't help but agree with most of the time. Except when she's involved.

The voice can't stand her, maybe because she brings out all the things in him that the voice abhors (or maybe it's just because she hit him so many times) and repelled itself when she'd been around, left niggling doubts in his head about her when he slept, had screamed bloody murder when he had proposed. But he'd ignored it, been so caught up in impulses and fearing the looming feeling in his stomach, reminding him that he had no idea where they'd be the next day, or if he'd ever see her again. And after she had followed him to the moon, it seemed like a prospect too exceptional to miss.

He'd read it wrong though. In his arrogance, he had been so sure she felt the same, so used to being accepted by women, that he hadn't even considered being turned down by her. But it wasn't he- he doesn't know now how he had ever thought it had been him- who had driven her to the moon. And at the time, he had felt foolish to think that he'd stand up to Cecil's magnificence. He's handsome too, he supposes, in his own gruff, deeply scarred, smell ninja way, but Cecil's strength and beauty is more that of the chivalrous hero. Only he got landed with the job as well, which probably drove her away.

(Only she never seemed like the hero-worshipping type.)

Only, before he's shied away, before he'd turned his back on her and tried (and failed entirely) to fill his mind with the curvaceous bartender he was thinking of accosting- in the barest moment when their eyes had met, she'd shown no pain, no hurt, even while watching the wedding of her supposed beloved. Her eyes had only held warmth, delight and maybe a sparkle of hope- which he was sure he had imagined- in that moment theirs had met. And then that slightly wounded look he thought he'd seen in her face, out of the peripherals of his eyes, when he had turned away. But he could only be sure he had seen her happy for Rosa, to finally have her heroic knight. Rosa suited him more, he supposes.

So maybe he's wrong. Maybe Cecil isn't the problem (and he doesn't know if he ever believed that Cecil was really the problem or if he just wanted to believe it wasn't him). But then who? There had to be someone.

And it couldn't be Kain. On the rare occasion that his bad influence had gotten her too drunk for sense or reason, she hadn't made her distaste for the wayward dragoon subtle. Indeed, he remembers an occasion, where she made up a song, serenading her disgust for him- and forced half of the bar, Kain included, to sing along, although luckily, she didn't seem to remember and Kain didn't mention it. He laughs with the memory, but then stops and curses, trying to drag himself back from maybes and what could have been.

So maybe he's the problem- and again, everything comes back to that voice, a representation of himself, he fears, in several years time, stately and old and boring and no longer caring for all the best things in life, like profanities or womanising or getting under-age mages (who can't hold alcohol) drunk or bribing the guards to let you escape the palace for a few hours of debauchery. Maybe she can't stand it. Maybe knowing him like that is worse than dying in the underground away from her own world, before he's even reached 30.

Maybe she can't be the person that Rosa became- a dutiful queen. Maybe she needs the freedom.

And he's torn between wanting to blame it, wanting to blame his title for another love lost, another prohibition on his life, giving him another reason to leave it all behind- and wanting to believe that he's foolish for ever thinking that just because a girl travelled to the moon to help him save the world (not to protect him. He can't ever think those words) and just because that girl once whispered his name in her sleep (of course, she could have been dreaming pleasant dreams about the bard serenading her instead. But he doubts it- because her drunken rants have often included the topic of Edward's sexual orientation. Luckily never when he was around) and just because when he saw her face as he was about to leave in the _Lunar Whale_, he saw hurt and terror in her eyes, worry for his safety behind the indignation- that just because she seemed to care, that she's got to be in love with him.

And, even if it's easier, it hurts to think that he's imagining all these things, that it's his fault she doesn't love him. So he uses the job as an excuse. She can't stand it, and no matter how she feels about him, the job prevents her from acting on it. It's easier to blame something he can't change, and has hated all his life anyway.

Then he realises he would have wanted her to be stuck here (still sometimes secretly hopes that Troia will ask to take her as one of their elders). And it sounds like one of the most evil thoughts he's had, right after the queer desire to push Palom off the tower in Mysidia for winking at her (quenched when she patted his head). He hates this job, and to wish it on anyone- especially her- disgusts him.

But he would, because he wants someone else stuck in the same position as him, hates being the only one who is being forced into this. Because Cecil choose to take over as king and Yang is suited to it and Edward- well, he isn't really, but he seems to be getting on alright.

He scratches his head and tries desperately to think of some way that he and the bard differ in situation- they can't be as similar as she always claimed. They're both stuck, it's true- but Edward didn't have another choice. He lost his second choice and has to rebuild a new one. But _he_ had one- a really good one. He could have thrown it all away and Elban to hell and ridden off with her into the sun set of that night.

And he's scared how angry he is at everyone- especially himself- when really, it's no one's fault. Just circumstances.

He can't be saved from this life- this duty- and he can't drag her into it, as much as he'd be prepared to. So proposing- even when everything seemed so over-blown and tinged faintly with a feeling of a fast-approaching close- was probably a bad decision. But, again, he can't regret it. He can't regret giving her the choice, instead of keeping both around and ending up having to choose himself- and choosing badly and losing something that he's learned to love (even if he hasn't quite saved himself from anything).

_So it's better she's gone. _And the kingly voice is thinking these thoughts and he can't disagree. But he can't help hoping. Which is probably why he's waiting, watching the sun set, far behind him now- willing it to come back, and draw her with it, hopeful for her to change her mind, to be Rosa and choose to be queen with him- except, would she still be who he wanted any more, if she did that?

So maybe he just wants her to be his salvation, and whisk him off into the sun-set- or maybe the night-fall. Whichever. He's confused now, thinking of himself as a damsel, instead of the hero. He doubts he's either.

He grumbles, knowing this means he should probably let go and leave the window. But it doesn't even tempt him. The twilight is long gone and so is she, but he can't help staying at the window and waiting for both.

--

(A/N: I'm aplologising now for the 15th paragraph. Really not finished, but it has to end somehwere... Review if you like)


End file.
